KINGDOMS IN THE AIR by Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean)

From the Internet:

Kingdoms in the Air: Dispatches from the Far Away brings together the very best of Bob Shacochis’s culture and travel essays in one live-wire collection that spans his global adventures and his life passions; from surfing, to his obsession with the South American dorado, to the time he went bushwhacking in Mozambique. In the titular essay “Kingdoms,” the longest work in the collection, Shacochis ventures to Nepal with his friend, the photographer Thomas Laird, who was the first foreigner to live in Nepal’s kingdom of Mustang as the forbidden Shangri-la prepared to open its borders to trekkers and trade. When the two men return a decade after Laird first lived there, Shacochis observes in brilliantly evocative prose both the current cultural and political landscape of the country, and the changes with which his friend has to reconcile.

Replete with Shacochis’s signature swagger, humor, and crystalline wisdom, Kingdoms in the Air is a majestic and essential collection from one of our most important writers.

• 

Here is a new ***Starred Booklist review of Kingdoms In The Air:

In the afterword, National Book Award – winner Shacochis (The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, 2013) urges travelers to test comfort zones, as if that impulse was avoidable while reading this exuberant travel and cultural anthology. Destination becomes irrelevant as Shacochis brings each setting to life with a perceptive eye, an edgy devotion to fresh language, and mastery at capturing group interaction. He often wrestles with a dilemma faced by many living in poor, touristy regions — how to balance development while preserving character. A hidden Himalayan kingdom allows some visitors, then becomes overrun. A sleepy Caribbean island sprouts resorts and casinos. Russian thugs control entire rivers, poaching caviar and leaving piles of dead salmon. Mexican villagers earn more money and watch more TV yet long for the simpler lives they led before a resort usurped their beaches. Cuba embraces glitzy tourism to finance the communist revolution.

Conservation-minded readers may balk when Shacochis plows through natural habitats on a tank-like ATV, an Amazonian power boat, or low-flying helicopters. But his unflinching treatment of many Third World predicaments will engage every reader. Shacochis lauds people with little money who claw their way to adventure, and his diverse, vibrant essays, brimming with initiative, may inspire some to seek the unique rewards of unstructured travel. — Dane Carr

• 

Best known for his sweeping international and political fiction narratives, Bob Shacochis (St. Vincent 1975–76) began his writing career as a pioneering journalist and contributing editor for Outside magazine and Harper’s.